Kamei Retro Racer mk1 build

Lookin good!

Hope you can make the AGM!!

You could run a 'spot the difference' competition!!!  

fthaimike said

Superb , just superb  8)

Hat off to you.

Love this mk1.

Absolutely love it <3

thank you all, just a bit gutted we can't make the meet as we had the time booked of.

4 x 100 15mm Hubcentric spacers arrived for our front setup.
 
Delivered within 24hrs Well Done vw heritage!!!!



Hopefully we can get the tracking/camber where it should be now.

Got on the KW blog (they even had an engineer come chat to us about our kw setup):

http://blog.kw-suspensions.co.uk/?p=4603

vw heritage blog (big thanks to them and our friends at nothelle):

http://www.vwheritage.…2/gti-international-2012/

updates to follow on inters pics….

two famous golfs; kamei racing golf & nothelle racing golf:







messing around with tracking with lads (test run at hotel)





Pics with my camera:

Me and Trevor:






























Pics from others:





Markus Nothelle goes for a quick spin around the area when it was quiet  :-)




Security put a quick stop to it, Oops






Me, Chris & Sue chatting:












Trevor:

(Photos by Neil Birkitt)










Slalom time….all in 1st gear!!! with plenty of rev limiter lol

Happy Days  :mrgreen:



Can't wait to get hold of a copy….

Thanks to all involved.

(I have had permission to post these from Ian Fermor)

Volkswagen Driver August 2012 (pics by Neil Birkitt).

You can find the magazine here http://www.autometrix.co.uk/volkswagen/

Cheers

Well i finally got around to sorting out the door cards that Michael Wright made for me.

I found these clips on Ebay that sell cheap and they were perfect:



The clips are a nice tight fit, these ones were for 7-8mm holes and the standard door holes are 8mm, they fit really flush and only show up more in the pics due to the camera….

Driver side done:



Passenger side done:



I used the standard MK1 rear passenger grab handles for the door handles, i put a rubber spacer between them and the panel which allows them to rotate slowly even with the retaining screw done up tight.

The rubber behind the window winder is the one usually used on the mirror adjusers.

PART 1 of our report…. Brands Hatch wed 25 july with vw heritage.

All started with getting the tracking sorted out the same week (2' camber with 0 toe) now that the 15mm hubcentric spacers were fitted from vw heritage:





The tuesday we were leaving on sadly fell after a night shift so packing the car and driving it was hard going.

We couldn't get a local transporter so the nearest was bath so had to decide on what to do…

Off came the wheels and on with the spare scratched 7x15 wheels, but when i got to the last wheel there was a screw in the wheel, damn so ended up knicking a wheel of my mk3 daily driver and stuck it on the back of the mk1.

We left an hour behind schedule at about 3pm and headed from Cardiff to Bath in about 30' sun in a noisy bumpy tin box and our satnav took us through a city centre during rush hour so between holding the clutch, trying to keep the car ticking over without stalling and holding her on the handbrake swerving around potholes by the time we reached the transporter location the sweat was pouring off us like some weird vw sauna torcher chamber phew, the only bonus was all the traffic kept out of our way just like when we went to inters which was well cool.

The transporter was a dream to drive, merc version 6 speed which was very nippy and after only a few miles it was just like a transit van but this had lovely comfort and aircon up full which really eased the journey.

We arrived at the thistle hotel brands hatch at about 10pm, had a little look around the hotel and then went and found a quiet parking space at the back of the car park there and returned to bed though struggled to sleep getting about 3hrs sleep.

Morning came to soon but after a full breakfast at the hotel we felt much better and popped outside just to check all was ok with the car/transporter and on the way back to the hotel a silver vauxall (rental car that was supposed to be a vw) was coming through the entrance of the hotel…

It was Uwe Meier-Andrae the owner of Kamei, we chatted briefly and he sorted out his room and then got comfy in the lounge and exchanged some kamei material we had for each other (lots of new stuff to add to my history later on) & listened to Uwe's time growing up with kamei racing & his family :-)

Uwe was excited about seeing the car so we went out and he was very impressed and had a good look saying it was the same as his own from the 70's.
we met back up again after a rest and got ready to go to the circuit after some phonecalls but there was a short delay at the entrance so Uwe asked for photos of the golf by the brands signs (i will add these later when he emails me) and i briefly met gurds and co also waiting.

vw heritage team then arrived and sorted out entrance and in we went eventually getting to the paddock and chatting to some people we were pointed towards our pit bay reading the signs….. Gurdip mk1, Reeves mk1 golf……Kamei race car (ha game on lol) & next to Marcus  Nothelle's great racing golf who we were with at inters.

I chatted to gurds and chris about a clunking noise i was having in the car and after a brief inspection we got the car unloaded off the transporter and i got gurds to jump in and i passengered with him up the quiet garage area behind the pits to try to replicate the noise which we did.

Then the clubgti a-team got on the job to investigate and we found out a lot of the nuts/bolts around the wishbone/ball joint were not tight…oh cack!!!
Everything was tightened up….







But a nut snapped off the bracket holding the front arb and it was the ones with the welded on threads on the bracket…

Chris to the rescue who removed the old thread, drilled a hole through and used a bolt/nut which worked great:



Then another problem was found, the balljoint bolt would not tighten as it had stripped the bolt thread but luckily Chris went through his bolt spares again and found a match which was fitted, phew.

Luckily all this was able to happen due to the extra time we were all there early and to have a good group of experienced mechanics which really helped get the car onto the circuit…..so all was well???? nope…

while jacking up the passenger side fuel started pouring out from the overfill…reason…numpty here had filled it to the brim while it was on the transporter on the way after passing a shell garage, cue chris trying to syphen some out but we resorted to draining a few cans out from the bottom pipe and this was given to marcus nothelle racing car as he had a shortage of fuel so a double gain to us both.

wow what a day so far and we hadn't even been on track yet.

signed in and went to the briefing with Uwe tagging along and he enjoyed it and I then got the noise test passed on the golf at the other end of the pits area.



Ewan the photographer from Newport Edition arrived during the chaos and did an ongoing photoshoot for us as we went through the evening (pics to follow)

after chatting again to people and checking things on the car the 1st session started (which we were not in) so i snapped a few pics in the pits:













The nothelle car popped out for more sessions and i think had it's own short session, marcus had a timing issue and it was sounding dreadfull when it 1st came out of the trailer into the garage but after finding a timing gun he seemed to sort out the issue and it sounded sweet.





Uwe & Neil Birkitt chatted many times, i had asked Neil to meet Uwe as i though it was a rare occassion and chance to chat with him so was glad to see it happen.



Time flew along and soon it was our 1st session with as far as i know all track special or race cars that also covered the fastest circuit vw's in the country…no pressure on a new circuit, gulp.

Me & Uwe Meier-Andrae of Kamei went out for the 1st half and neil was snapping some shots of us close up inside the car so look forward to those :-)

(next 4 pics by Chris Eyre)

Me & Uwe


Wow to the next picture to have from chris!!!! following the BTCC car and Reeves in the distance joining the circuit.




Uwe talked me through a few mistakes i made then enjoyed how the car was running feeling nice and strong (even without a tune up) and nice and planted (when we took the correct lines lol).



We had a few nervous laps with cars whizzing every which way but it settled down and enjoyed some laps learning some lines then pitted to collect Susan for a few laps.



(pics to follow)

Soon the session finished, 20mins that felt like 5mins and it was back to the pits and chatted to many people and watched some other sessions….

During our gap between the 2nd session Uwe met lots of people and we found him later lol….



Crashed out.




tbc…

Nice report Mike, and great teamwork helping you out. Must have been a very special day, congrats. Wanted to attend this myself and bring my Oettinger or Limited but too much work on.

Cheers, more to come.

Shaun Hollamby AMD

Hi Mike, the Kamei Golf looked great. the colour scheme looked miles better than ours!! Cheers Shaun

^ ^ ^ got to be happy with that :-)

Great pic with the two Golfs on track:
http://homepage.ntlwor…nightley/AmD/imgp1692.jpg

Report part 2:

After taking my wife Susan out in the car, it became not an expensive paper weight any more but something that you can really enjoy.

She was a bit nervous, not of speed of course as she has done crazy speed in a race car at the Nurburgring with Ron Simmons but it was more about it all being new as a package and ironing out any problems (having so many lose bits before the event didn't exactly help).

She was really impressed with everyone who helped out or was involved with us in any way.

One problem we do have is the lack of view to the left side of the car as the passenger mirror will only turn in enough for the passenger to see out of it, i did fit a halfords suction mirror to the left side of the screen but this was still hard to find that sweet blindish spot but i think with some messing about we should be able to get a way around it.

After the 1st session Uwe said he really enjoyed it and loved the buzz around the event, he had a nap as he had flown from Germany at the early hours of this day then walked over to the air/water cooled event on the other side of the track as he loves all the old German machinery on show.

I chatted to Chris & Gurdip and was glad that the session went well mechanicaly and did a short pit walk chatting to a few people in the session to make sure i didn't make any silly mistakes around them with some of the speed differences.

I remembered my Kamei flags at some point and got those up on the pit garage wall which helped to finish off the look.

Uwe spent some time stood up on the bed of the transporter watching the cars go around and chatted to many people.

When the second session began Me & Susan went out for this as Uwe was just coming back from the displays iirc

This session felt so much better, i got the braking a lot better though paddock hill bend just drops and turns into nowhere lol but is an awsome feeling when you get it right and just accelerate right up to the hairpin with ease.

I loved the surtees chicane though struggled to find the right line through Mclaren/Clearways as did some others. Blasting down Clark curve and over the start finish was smile times….

Sadly 5mins before the end i thought what sounded like a bolt i had left inside the car started rolling around on the last bend so we slipped into the pits & i jumped out & climbed into the boot but couldn't find anything or elsewhere inside so we went back out when it was quiet but when we got to 4000rpm there was a tinny noise which i had before when i over tightened the fan belt (the cooling blades would tap on the adjuster bar) so we took a nice easy lap around with the indicators on and slipped back into the pits.

Upon inspection me and Ewan could see that the alternator was loose? and then noticed the bottom bolt that goes into the block had unwound itself and dropped out…

So the sound i heard was it bouncing along the floor like i though but it was underneath the car not in the car, i chatted to Marcus Nothelle and he was suprised as he had retired with exactly the same problem!!!!

Cue clubgti team again to the rescue with a temporary bolt to hold it in with a tie wrap on the end of the thread where it coemes out of the front of the block as there was no room for a nut for this bolt.

We watched everyone else finishing and Ewan got more camera flash stands set up and took some photos of the car while the sunlight was setting into the garage and did another photoshoot :-)

Chris, Gurdip & his mate helped us to load the car onto the transporter and we were the last people to leave the pits, even security came over to check lol.

We exited the pits down the no entry ramp as told by security as we needed to got through the higher tunnel and the festival and awards had just finished so we tagged into the moving cars……smash!!! oh crap what was that, jumped out just as a marshall was coming over and he picked up a broken bottle, yes some idiot had left it in on the exit area…idiot and luckily no damage to the rear transporter tyre that drove over it.

we exited brands hatch circuit and parked in their hotel and had a quick wash then met in the bar.

Spent time eating, drinking (cold soft drinks) and chatting….the corner slowly grew as vw heritage joined and the vw genuine parts team from germany, spent some time chatting to one of them and Uwe chatted to everyone, eventually got shattered and retired to bed saying our goodbyes as sadly we had to return the transporter for 8am and Uwe's flight wasn't until the evening of the same day.

Got up 4:30 and left by about 5:30 though this time our satnav worked better and we had some great clear roads…epic driving past stone henge and would have loved to have had somewhere to park and take a pic as the sun was blood red that morning.

Unloaded the car in bath and while checking car over the next person turned up to collect it so glad i left early.

Left the good wheels on the car as the spare ones were vibrating over 50mph (balancing maybe?) and took our time home and this time avoiding the city center on the way to the M4.

We had a good journey and the amount of passengers cruising past that took photos was staggering and had many smiles from them and waves with no-one tail gaiting us so after a safe journey home i chatted to Uwe again who said again that he loved it all and next year he wants to bring his historical collection of Porsche or beetles etc over to show us.

Happy Days!!!!!

If i missed anything/one out please remind me as with age things go poop.

Photos by Bob Knightley:

Me & Uwe









Me & Susan

A few photos from Uwe Meier-Andrae:














And photos from others there: